Chapter 04: The Hoarder and the Learner

Claire folded the map of the first floor and tucked it into a pocket of her tactical vest. She watched Rick examine the door next to the wall, which led, if she remembered correctly, to a buffer space accessing either a corridor or the Records Room. The sight of the heavy golden chain and the sound of its links told her this would not be their path.

Rick stared at it intently. To her, he seemed to hesitate, a reaction she found curious. A sigh escaped from behind his mask before he gave up on trying to remove the chain.

“Not going that way.”

Claire pointed behind her with her thumb. “Then it’s through this broken window.”

He looked up and saw a rectangular window leading to their destination. Pallets were piled underneath, a clear sign someone had used them to cross already.

“Good find.”

He climbed on top of them. Only then did Claire notice he was a bit taller. Where she would have needed to rise onto her toes to see past the opening, he did not. After sweeping his flashlight left and right for a few seconds, he turned, crouched, and offered her a hand. She took it and climbed up.

“On the left, about ten feet, is a corpse on the ground. The corridor’s blocked, so that’s the only danger there. On the right is Officer Ryswell, having a fight with a still-working vending machine. Guess the dead retain some… instincts.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with a slight frown.

“Ryswell was morbidly obese. Permanent desk duty because of it, and I never saw him behind one. Always in front of the coffee machine or a vending machine, or with food in hand,” he explained. “Anyway, the angle isn’t great, but there might be more of them to his left.”

“So we take care of the lone one on the left, then Ryswell?” she suggested.

“Yeah. You go first.” He bent his knees and laced his hands together to make a step.

The idea of protesting never crossed her mind. She grabbed the ledge and placed her foot in his hands. He hoisted her up immediately, surprising her with his speed and ease.

“Wait before moving. I need you to catch my bag,” Rick whispered as she cleared the window.

“Roger that,” she answered just before landing with a soft thud.

Her gun aimed forward. She saw Ryswell shaking the vending machine, oblivious, just as Rick had said. Turning, she saw the other corpse.

“Ready?”

Claire looked up, holstered her revolver, and raised her arms. Rick’s bag was on the ledge. She caught it effortlessly and stepped aside. He landed a moment later.

He left his bag and instead drew his cleaver and an ankle knife. With a jerk of his head, he pointed toward the downed corpse and moved toward the obese zombie.

Claire turned, walked silently to the body, and drew her knife. She took a deep breath, aimed, and stabbed at the neck. A muffled moan answered. She pulled the blade out and plunged it again, this time into the eye, piercing the brain. She had been lucky the zombie turned its head. Doubly lucky when she spotted and grabbed a box of 9mm nearby. There was no time to check the count; from its weight and rattle, it wasn't much. Looking back, she saw Ryswell down but Rick nowhere in sight. Worry bloomed in her chest until she heard a wet, squishing sound.

Moving forward, knife and gun in hand, she reached where the corridor opened wide. Rick was rummaging through a dead officer’s pockets. Relieved, she went to check Ryswell’s body.

“Any issues?” Rick asked as he returned for his bag.

“None. Found a few bullets.”

He nodded. “Got any change?”

Claire blinked. “Change? What for?”

Rick pointed at the working vending machine. “For water. Tap water’s probably contaminated. I’d rather not test it or waste what clean water we have.”

Claire’s expression shifted to amusement. “You really are a hoarder.” She pulled her wallet from her back pocket. If anyone had told her cash would be useful in a zombie apocalypse, she’d have called them crazy.

Rick took the coins with a ‘thanks’ and retrieved two small bottles. He stowed them and prepared to move. Utter silence filled the area, but it promised nothing. He took the lead, entering the West Office first.

His flashlight beam swept immediately to the left, scanning the room. It revealed a dead officer slumped at his desk. Claire went right to check the other side while Rick decapitated the cop—a correct move, as it twitched. She found another zombie leaning against the wall in the chief’s small office.

“Clear!” Rick’s voice wasn’t loud, but the silence made it carry.

“Clear,” Claire said, already searching the small office for anything useful. She found a small floor safe behind the desk, locked tight. “Found a safe,” she called out, walking back.

Rick was standing before a desk, a file in hand. “I found this.”

He raised it, tapped a specific paragraph, and handed it to her.

“It's down to just me and 3 others. No weapons...no ammo...and too many skirmishes have drained us mentally and physically. We're not gonna make it... Officer Phillips once suggested we escape through the sewers. Apparently, there's a secret tunnel under this place left over from its museum days.

I brushed her idea off before, but now, it's not sounding all that bad. Yeah, there's no proof there's even a tunnel or that the sewers aren't infested with zombies, but I don't wanna sit here and wait to die either.

It's a long shot, but I'm gonna try to find out what I can about that tunnel.

Elliot Edward.”

Claire read it aloud. “So it adds credibility to a secret exit. The sewers.”

“Yeah. Don’t know if that’s good news. Sewers are… If there are zombies there…”

He let the words hang, and she understood. Darkness, confinement, foul air. Navigating them would be a nightmare. It was still their only hope, so they had to try.

She set the file down, and they combed the room. She found it sadly funny that the department had prepared a welcome for Leon, with small balloons and a ceiling banner that read ‘Wellcome Leon’. The misspelling tugged a corner of her mouth upward.

They found a box of 9mm but no key for the spade doors. Rick was picking the locks on what was presumably Leon’s desk.

“Honestly, that’s the kind of hazing I can get behind,” Claire chuckled after reading Marvin’s note.

To open the desk, Leon had to unlock two locks using the initials of his new colleagues. Three letters each. A clever way to learn names, especially with a reward inside.

The rewards were a speedloader for a revolver and an extended magazine for a semi-automatic.

Claire took the speedloader and loaded six rounds but left the magazine.

“Leave it for Leon. He could use it,” she told Rick as he reached for it.

He didn’t protest, setting it back down. He advised her to leave a note, which she did. After a final look, they decided to head for the stairs. That was the plan until Rick detoured into the Safe Deposit Room opposite the office. He dispatched a zombie there while Claire found a note stating the locker console was broken.

“It’s just missing buttons,” Rick told her flatly. He pulled a screwdriver from his belt and used the shaft to press the hidden contacts on the damaged keypad. Claire was surprised when the console accepted the input. “A button is just something you push. The console doesn’t care what.”

“So anything could have worked?”

“Pretty much. Same with a keyboard. You could wire a banana to it and it would work the same. It’s a shame they didn’t know; they could have used what was locked up.”

The lockers yielded a grenade, a knife, more 9mm and shotgun shells, a film roll, a few incendiary rounds, and, to Claire’s delight, a pouch. She fixed it to her back, moving the knife holster to her left shoulder for easier access.

The real prize was at the room’s end: a shotgun and a grenade launcher behind a locked fence, requiring a keycard.

“Can’t you open it?” Claire asked, gesturing at the lock.

“I could try, but I might break it for good. Better to find the keycard and come back.”

“Fair enough.”

They left the room and turned left into the long corridor leading to the stairs. This time, Claire rushed forward first, spotting a zombie violently hurling itself against the window to the outside. She was a moment too late; the undead tumbled inside. She was fast enough, however, to put it down before it could rise. Rick was beside her instantly, gun raised, scanning the stairs and second floor for any drawn-by-the-noise threats.

Claire moved past him and returned with planks she’d seen earlier. Without a word, she took Rick’s hammer. He handed her nails without looking. She secured the broken window quickly.

“Nice reflexes,” he praised, holstering his weapon.

She gave him a proud smile. “I’m a fast learner.” She walked toward the recess next to the stairs. “There’s a room here. I found a green herb.”

“That’s the Darkroom,” he said, following her.

The room held little of use, save for a full box of 9mm and a red herb. Since it was relatively remote and secure, Rick took a moment to grind the three herbs into as fine a powder as possible. Lacking a mortar, he used the butt of his cleaver after slicing them finely. He mixed one red with one green. The resulting compound went into a folded paper from a discarded file, which he handed to Claire.

“Why not mix the other one?” she asked, confused.

“It wouldn’t be enhanced by the red. It would dilute the healing properties.”

She didn’t fully understand. “That’s… curious.”

“Hmm. Think of it like…” He searched for an analogy. “Milk and coffee? Too much milk neutralizes the coffee’s bitterness. Makes it useless. There’s a balance.”

“Now that makes sense.” Claire didn’t voice her thoughts, but she wondered how he knew so much about mixing herbs. Another question for the ‘ask later’ box in her mind.

“Come on, we’ve spent enough time here.”

“Right.”

Flashlight in hand, gun ready, Claire fell in behind Rick as he stepped back into the silent hallway.